Saturday, September 05, 2015

Little to report.

I measured my husband. I think it would
indeed be a good idea to make the new vest a couple of inches bigger
than the old. I wound a skein of Whiskey Barrel. I knit peacefully on
the Sous Sous for awhile and am now only a (long) row or two short of the
exciting point where the neck shaping begins – and then the Sous Sous,
as well, demanded a new skein. That's where I am.

I got to John Lewis and bought some net
curtaining. I wonder if I can find a Woman to do the sewing, once I
have unpicked the border lace from the old curtain and washed it and
pinned it on and done the other necessary measuring and pinning. So
much to do, even if I can find a Woman.

The hollandaise was a success, but its
richness was too much for my now elderly tastes.

I finished reading “Life's Greatest
Secret”, not without relief. It would be better read on paper so
that one could keep referring to the glossary. What is a nucleotide?
What, come to that, is a protein?

Where next? Ridley, as planned? I was
grateful for your pointer, Cat, to his book about nature and nurture,
a fascinating subject. I'll get to that in time. Dawkins is very
readable in one sense, and too shrill in another. He is forever
haranguing his imagined opponents rather than expounding his subject,
as if he were standing in the foothills of Mount Olympus handing out
leaflets claiming to prove that there are no gods up there.

A good idea makes its own way. At the
beginning of the events reported in “Life's Greatest Secret” it
was generally believed that proteins were the medium by which
inheritance was passed on. When it was proved that the medium was, in
fact, DNA, the opponents didn't all just wither away at once. Some
went on stoutly maintaining that the experiments were faulty; there
must have been some protein mixed with the DNA.

The position of evolution is somewhat
different, because of its attraction for ignorant extremists. Nobody
goes around doubting that e equals mc squared.

What about Darwin himself? Is he
readable? He's free on Kindle. I'm sure he's not shrill.

7 comments:

I seem to be unable to post; will try once more. Franklin has a new piece in Lion Brand's newsletter; very funny. Wish he could clone himself and so write more. Let's see if this posts as Anonymous since it does not like me as kayT.

At least on my Kindle, one can tap on a word and a dictionary definition, or sometimes a Wikipedia entry, will appear. Another feature I love is X-ray. Make the menu at the top of the page appear, then one choice on the bottom row is X-ray. If you tap that, all the proper names are listed. I was reading a spy novel. I got a Wiki entry for both DGSE and St. pancras station, plus i could tap to see all the references to those terms in order, in the book, plus all mentions of characters "Fred" and "Susanne." I could read two lines about Fred as he first appeared in the book, or tap on that entry to go to that page. Good thing, because I couldn't remember who Fred was. hope that helps with "nucleotide ". [Ignore typos. IPhone awkwardness. ]

Darwin is readable but would give you an understanding of evolution that is not today's understanding. Stephen Jay Gould was a lively and accessible popularizer of scientific ideas - this far out from my undergrad science, not sure how current is the idea of "punctuated evolution" that he was explaining in some of his nice essay collections during the 70s and 80s. They were so popular, probably easy to find now.- Beth in Ontario

There are little shops hidden away in the side streets which carry out alterations and repairs, a search on Google will most likely be fruitful and often there are reviews from people who have used the service. I had cause to use one recently to take up two layers of fabric to shorten my daughter's prom dress and they were very reasonable. Your hairdresser may be able to recommend someone as they are often talking to people preparing for special occasions, getting alterations done, etc.